


Just One Kiss

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: Doctor Who, Whouffaldi - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: A flirtatious battle of the wills over breakfast one morning prompts the Doctor and Clara to confront their feelings for one another.





	Just One Kiss

“Wha-what are you doing?” Clara stammered as she stepped into the TARDIS control room, clad in her robe and slippers. She ran a hand through her bedhead hair and tried to force her cheeks to *un-blush*, with no success. 

“Oh, this is all out of whack, I don’t know what happened,” the Doctor replied casually, cranking one of the control nodules with a wrench and then scanning it with his sonic screwdriver. All normal, Doctor-y sorts of things to be doing. And yet…

Clara looked down at her mug of coffee, suddenly wishing it was spiked with whiskey. She attempted to avert her eyes from the Doctor, but just as the noble plan resolved itself in her sleepy brain, his eyes landed on her with an innocent, perplexed expression and she froze.

“Doctor,” she said, deciding to try and reason with him, “Where is your shirt?”

“Oh!” He said, finally understanding what she was on about, but either not getting it or being willfully inscrutable again. “I don’t know. Why, what difference does it make? I couldn’t sleep because I could hear something clattering around inside here, all the vibrations were wrong. Just got to work as I was a couple of hours ago.” The more words he added onto the explanation, the more he seemed to notice the ambience created by Clara’s own mood, and then he struggled. “Ah…sorry?”

“‘What difference does it make?’” Clara repeated, rolling her eyes. There he sat, steaming mug of tea and plate of biscuits balanced precariously beside him — maybe if he didn’t put food on the controls, they’d function properly! — a pair of blue striped pajama pants his only visible apparel. His slim body and the sight of that much exposed skin had sent an immediate prickling sensation up and down Clara’s spine, heat radiating through her in mingled guilty pleasure and embarrassment. Thoughts attacked her brain greedily, ideas and images that she tried to erase before her mortified look outed her sensual reverie.

“Are you on your way to the beach, Doctor? Just out of the shower?” She cocked her head to one side and tapped her foot impatiently, getting a bit irritated by his surely-feigned obliviousness.

“No,” he replied, turning to fully face her. He stared into her face, and she stared back, almost against her will, dragged to his gaze by the waves of desire she was fighting to keep concealed. Finally, seeming to determine that he was just never going to understand what the issue was, he shrugged and said, “Must be a human thing. Sorry again. From now on, shirts. Check.”

Clara observed him from the back as he went rushing from the room, then caught herself out and scowled. There was no need for him to have such a cute behind, surely. 

“All set, life can go on as usual,” the Doctor remarked cheerfully as he returned, having tossed on his t-shirt, hoodie, and his familiar plaid pants. “All better!”  
“So, we humans are just *so* absurdly preoccupied with nudity, we’re so not evolved compared to you Timelords, right?” Clara asked, placing her coffee down and raising her eyebrows challengingly.

“Oh, relax, Clara, it’s not your fault! You’re a completely different species, centuries behind us in many respects.” He’d been half-joking, but instantly he knew that this had been the wrong thing to say. “I’ve made it worse, haven’t I?”

“No, of course you haven’t,” Clara replied, a certain determination in her look giving him pause. “I understand what you mean. You’re far too cultured and wise to care about such petty things, or to be distracted by them.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess. So?”

Big mistake. Clara clucked her tongue and shook her head. “So.” She’d slipped out of her robe and tossed it over the railing before he guessed what she was up to.

“Clara, no!” He began in futile objection as she continued with her plan, smirking. She pulled her t-shirt off and stood there in her shorts and bra, hands on her hips, waiting.

“What’d you mean?” Clara inquired, stepping forward, her bare arm brushing against his sleeve as she passed, practically making him jump out of his skin. She leaned against the control panel and took a bite from his biscuit, chewing thoughtfully and enjoying the completely awkward and overwhelmed Doctor to the fullest. 

He’d been unwilling to look again, but then her words caused him to do so instinctively before replying and he fumbled for anything to say. Clara licked a bit of jelly from her lips and shrugged. “Oh, well. Sorry. Must be a Timelord thing.” Assuming her point had been made and taking satisfied triumph from having actually shocked him that seemed to balance out her own previous embarrassment at her feelings, Clara prepared to make her sassy exit. As you do.

However, the Doctor caught her elbow lightly and she stopped, arrested by his intensity, something she’d been unprepared for. A bit of a saucy laugh was all she’d intended, Clara realized, and she wasn’t ready for the seriousness that he was leveling at her now with those beautiful blue eyes. “No, it isn’t,” the Doctor admitted, his voice low and vulnerable, the lilt of his accent and his husky tone causing Clara undeniable arousal as her heart skipped a beat. “It’s a you thing, Clara,” he confessed. “It’s the way I feel when I see you.”

He paused, still holding her arm, their bodies drawing closer as if of their own volition, the concept of personal space evaporating without Clara’s realizing it until she found that her rapid breaths, especially visible due to her scantily clad state, were making her a bit dizzy.

“And how is that, exactly?” She blurted recklessly, but he smiled sadly, letting her go. Ready to run away again. 

“As if you have to ask,” he said miserably, a quiet explosion of anger and despair that shattered her. Anger that she would push him towards a confession which he felt sure would bring nothing but heartbreak and pain. Despair at the impossibility of just being honest.

“Don’t walk away from me, Doctor,” Clara insisted.

“What else can I do?” The Doctor threw his hands up in frustration, his eyes going huge. And to think that in the past, he’d accused *her* of being the one with eyes that were too much to bear when they “inflated.” The Doctor’s own beseeching gaze could be just as powerful.

“You know very well.” She shook her head. What was he waiting for? Why was he wound up so tightly in this state of refusing to believe in them? She wanted to unwind his worries so badly that she could taste the bitter pain of not being able to do it. Clara longed to touch him and feel his caress, his breath on her skin, his kiss…she’d often wondered why it seemed as if that would make everything alright again, set her universe straight, relieve her own near-constant state of tension and denial. Yet now, locked again in a ridiculous staring contest with the man she loved but could never seem to completely have, Clara felt the answer was self-explanatory.

They were made for each other.

“Just, just stay there a minute, will you?” She asked, walking up and placing her hands on his chest. The Doctor let his fingers flutter along her waist and Clara shivered, looking up at him as he sighed.

“Clara, it would never work out between us if we…” he whispered. 

“I know,” she said, aching, running her fingers through his gorgeous mop of silver hair and then letting them wander along his fine cheekbones and his neck until he bit his lip. His hold on her firmed up and soon he lowered his head as she leaned upward, her arms encircling his shoulders. “Maybe just one kiss,” she suggested, brushing her lips against his, feeling his hesitation and seriously considering that maybe it was time she let him be. Let this go, give up hope. Even though the kiss felt every bit as good as Clara had anticipated, and then some.

“Okay, just the once,” he murmured, “There’s that done, then.”

“Right,” Clara said and cleared her throat, disintegrating.

But the Doctor could only hold back for an instant before he claimed her mouth again with his own, deliberately, hotly, cupping her face in his long fingers. Taken aback by his surrender into passion, Clara returned it, collapsing against him and deepening the kiss as they fell into a chair, her straddling him as his fingers explored her back. Having the pretense of platonic innocence stripped away gave Clara a heady rush of freedom, and it seemed to be having the same effect on the Doctor. They kissed so many times, hungrily, then sweetly, softly, then somehow falling into a teasing mode, Clara nibbling his bottom lip gently for just a second. One hand wrapped up in her hair, the Doctor kept her tightly held by the waist in the other as his lips traveled from her ear down to her neck and Clara gasped, pressing herself against his lower body until his own breath caught.

“What are we doing?” He asked desperately, as if he’d climbed onto a rollercoaster knowing that it was bound to crash, but he was hypnotized by the heights, the twists and turns, the seductive thrill. 

“Don’t ask me to be the one that stops us,” Clara replied, slipping her fingers beneath his shirt and tip-toeing them from his stomach to his chest. “You’ll have to do it.”

One more look, with him devastatingly lost to soul-soaking need was all it took for her to know that wasn’t going to happen. “I can’t,” he confessed breathlessly, and she pulled his hoodie off, relishing the soft sound as it hit the floor. 

“Good,” Clara answered shamelessly, nodding at the hem of his shirt. “Shirts. Who needs them?” She winked as he removed it, but then he slid his finger beneath one of her bra straps, exposing her shoulder and she thought she was going to melt right there. A Clara puddle. That was all he had to do to render her completely helpless, and the touch was so tentative that Clara could only imagine how it would feel to go further. She didn’t want to just imagine it anymore. She had to know.

“I was thinking…” the Doctor told her, easing the other bra strap down and then caressing her shoulders, drawing out her patience to its breaking point.

“Yeah? Is that the best idea at the moment?”

“Well, what about a bed? That might be the best idea.” 

Clara grinned, taking his hand as he returned the smile shyly. Even though no one was watching them, they both seemed to feel some need to behave casually and simply walk to her room, but that only lasted for about half the short journey. Soon enough they were hurrying so that they could go sloppily slamming into the room, resuming their kissing without a care for anything else except this dissolve into what they’d both wanted for so very long.

After they had followed their passion to its summit using only the first few methods that came to mind, Clara fell against the Doctor’s chest with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan. Perspiration had dampened her hair and she could feel the answering heat in his fingers as he held her, breathing deeply. They were just three heartbeats, now connected more inextricably than ever by one screaming, undeniable love that had finally defied every single obstacle that still lay before them. Maybe, Clara thought, maybe all of those “reasons why not,” the hesitations which had kept them from one another’s arms, really were meaningless. Compared with the all-encompassing happiness she now felt, what did it matter even if their love was somehow doomed due to her mortality or the simple fact of the dangers they faced on every one of their adventures? Clara was done overanalyzing it and putting her fears and paranoia in charge of her decision-making. 

“Are you glad, or are you still scared?” She got up the nerve to ask, nuzzling against him.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied honestly, kissing the top of her head. “But mostly, I’m glad. More than that…I’m happy. I think I forgot how to *be* that. Happy.”

“Me, too,” Clara smiled against his skin, letting her eyelids flutter down as she sank into a state of blissful comfort. “I remember now, although I don’t think I ever felt it like this.”

“Then let’s just feel it,” he murmured, tracing his fingers over her skin, as if trying to memorize every inch of her. Clara sighed, her skin tingling all over again. 

“I always will,” she promised him, and sealed it with a kiss.


End file.
